Project: Hero
by hickorydaisy
Summary: Shadow and Sharpshot have protected Aquarock for years - but when two real-life Supervillains appear on the scene, what are these unprepared masked heroes to do? Well, ask brand new, superpowered heroes to figure it out, obviously. Cross-Posted from Ao3.


The sun was out, shining brighter than ever it seemed. Nothing would have told you something was amiss.

And yet, something was - there was a bank teller being robbed. She screamed and the robber grabbed his money to leave - and was promptly kicked in the face for his troubles.

"Good one Shadow," laughed a feminine voice from the doorway. "Saves us the trouble of having to track him down later - or deal with the police."

Shadow, a young-looking black man with his face and hair hidden under a large, full mask and wearing a skin-tight full bodysuit for ease of movement, rolled his eyes at the girl and shrugged. "You know me, Sharpshot. Always doing the most efficient thing."

Sharpshot walked forward to stand face-to-face with her partner, stepping out of the shadows. She wore a black pantsuit like she was actually at some fancy business meeting, except there was a gun holstered on her hip in a light pink holster and a matching half-mask covering up most of the recognizable features of her face. "So damn efficient, I couldn't even do anything. I think that's a new record, Shadow."

"Whatever, Sharpshot. Just be glad we're done," Shadow replied as he tied up the offender.

"Trust me, I am, but I don't want to be the butt of some misogynistic fool's joke - again," Sharpshot put her hands on her hips and leaned a bit forward to glare a bit at Shadow.

"That's hardly my fault," Shadow stood up, leaving the robber on the ground. "And if you'll excuse me, Sharpshot, I must take my leave. I have a date in -" he paused to check his watch, "approximately thirty minutes. And if we are still here when the police arrive, I shall never make it."

"Yeah, I should get going too. Have fun on your date, loverboy," Sharpshot smirked as she swaggered back out the front door, Shadow following her mere seconds later in a far more subdued manner.

"That's really incredible," Maria grinned at the television from where she was lounging on her boyfriend's couch. "Superheros are so cool."

"You're taking up half the couch, Maria!" Eliza protested from her seat by Maria's feet. "Move your feet!"

"I didn't invite you over to watch the news!" John protested. "And I can't sit on the couch now! The two of you have taken up the whole thing!"

"You could sit with me," Alexander grinned from where he was sitting in the floor. "I'd like that." Alexander exaggeratedly fluttered his eyelashes, making John roll his eyes while Maria laughed.

"Enough," John air-whacked his boyfriend. "News is not the same thing as Chicago, therefore it is time to turn off the news and watch the movie."

"He had it coming!" Maria sing-songed and poked John as she sat up so he could sit down. "He only had himself to blame! If you'da been there, if you had seen it! I betcha you would have done the same!"

"I hardly think that I should be murdered because I made you sit up on the couch," John rolled his eyes and booped Maria's nose, making her giggle.

"Popcorn delivery!" A little boy toddled in carrying a large metal bowl of popcorn. "Are you guys sure I can't watch with you?" He asked as he handed the bowl to John.

"Sorry, Jemmy," John spoke to his younger brother, "But I think this movie is a little grown up for you."

James pouted, but left the room as the movie started up.

About a week after the 'Polysquad,' as they playfully dubbed themselves, had watched Chicago at the Laurens residence, the lively relationship decided to have a date at a small park. Their arrival revealed to them that the park was nearly empty, with the only other people in it being the pompous King twins, Jake and Georgette. Luckily, the park was big enough the two groups could avoid each other.

The date went well, all things considered. The four of them walked around the park and talked about this and that and generally had a good time. Eliza regaled them, yet again, with stories from her recent trip to DC ("But still no bakery!"), Alexander gave them a long winded account of a debate he and Jefferson had had in AP Lang a few days prior, John told stories about his siblings shanaganary, and Maria laughed and laughed. That's not to say the others didn't laugh, just to say that Maria did it more.

The date ended happily, and the four of them began to walk towards where they had stashed their bicycles, because bicycles were fun, when something odd happened. It was almost like an explosion, except there was no destruction, just a blinding light. When it cleared, there was no immediate damage, and while they all agreed it was odd, they decided to just go home, since nothing seemed to have happened.

The next day dawned, foggy like a sleep-addled mind. And then it lit up like the sun.

"AHHHH!"

Maria couldn't process what she was seeing. Despite every part of her rational mind telling her it couldn't be possible, she knew she wasn't dreaming this either, the panicked screams drifting in through her window told her that much.

But her house was on fire. She was on fire. And she couldn't feel it at all.

"What the hell?" she nearly whispered, watching the flames dance all around the room. She slid out of bed and wandered about the room, waving her hands through the flame. And then she remembered - the explosion from yesterday - did it do something to her?

Maria decided to see if she could create fire. Something in the back of her mind told her that was a bad plan, but she was curious and payed it no heed. She lifted her hand and attempted to produce a flame.

She wasn't quite expecting the literal column of fire that resulted from her little experiment.

Alexander was banging around the house again, looking for a book. While such an event wasn't out of the norm, it was still only five in the morning, which was too early for this noise.

"Alexander? What are you looking for?" George Washington, Alexander's adoptive father, sleepily poked his head around the corner.

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy," Alexander replied. "I need information about women's roles in the American Civil War."

"Can't that wait, Alexander?" Washington asked, clearly perplexed. "It's five in the morning, and some of us are still trying to sleep."

"No, no, I want to get this essay done today," Alexander looked thoughtful. "I know it's in here somewhere…" Alexander glanced around the library, which was honestly mostly his books, which wouldn't all fit in his room and ranged from Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson novels to gigantic narrative histories - the one on Homophobia showed extreme signs of wear.

Washington rolled his eyes, but honestly that was about the result he expected. "Maybe I can help you look? That way I can go back to sleep faster."

Alexander, clearly not listening, began sifting through the books about his eye-level on the nearest book shelf. "I wish I had about fifty more hands," He muttered, "Then I could hold all the books at once and look at their covers instead of the less informative spines."

Washington let out a sharp gasp, which drew Alexander's attention away from the books he was browsing and turned around - to find that a large number of books were floating.

"What the -" Alexander yelled, shocked, and the books suddenly fell to the floor in a clatter. The noise was immense, there was no way Alexander could have just imagined it, and yet… "Did… did I do that?" he asked, but Washington didn't reply and the books, being inanimate objects, also refused to answer.

Alexander tilted his head curiously, interested in the mystery of the floating books. Had he did it? And if he had, could he do it again? He had thought about having more hands to hold all the books, so perhaps if he did that again?

A few seconds passed as he thought about it.

The books began to rise off the floor.

John was rather thrilled. He was going to go swimming with his family today! Just him, his father, his mother, and his ten siblings.

"Hurry it up John, you're going to make us late!" called his older sister Ann, dashing past his room with her swim bag already slung over her shoulder; her towel, printed with a multicolor pineapple, sticking slightly out of it.

"I'm moving as fast as I can, Ann!" John yelled back. "But I can't find my goggles!" John hated swimming without his goggles. Inevitably, his siblings would start a splash fight, and without his goggles, he was certain to get water in his eyes.

"We don't have time, John, you'll have to do without them!" Ann sing-songed, "Dad's already starting the car!"

"Wait for me!" Harry dashed past, looking rather, well, harried, at least for a six-year-old. "I'm not there yet!"

"You're going in mom's car, remember, Harry?" John could practically hear Ann rolling her eyes, but he wasn't focused on that at the moment, as the location of his goggles continued to elude him.

"Right, right!" Harry dashed off again, leaving John alone with an irate Ann, which was not a fate John found favorable.

"Forget your damn goggles, John!" Ann snapped, stamping her foot. "You really are holding us up."

"Alright, alright," John yielded, and left the room without his goggles. And got in the car without his goggles. And was forced to listen to Kesha's "Hunt You Down" five times on repeat without goggles. And reached the pool without goggles. And got in the pool without goggles.

They were the only people at the pool currently, which was awesome, since there were a lot of them. John's mother settled on the stairs with James and Sammy. Ann pushed Henry Jr. into the pool and then jumped in after him, paying no mind to his enraged screeches. Martha and Elias had somehow already started a splash fight, despite having only been there for about five minutes. Harry looked a bit scared of the water, not unusual, and was being slowly tugged towards it by Luke, who was thrilled to finally be old enough to play off of the steps. And lastly, Stella and Nelly were having a jumping competition to see who could make the bigger splash.

"Aren't you coming in, John?" John's father, Henry Sr., inquired from where he was playing with James and Sammy as well. "It's not very cold today, if that's what you're worried about."

"Huh? Oh, no, I was just thinking," John shook his head to clear it and then walked down the stairs, passing his parents and youngest two siblings along the way. James was complaining that he was old enough to play in the main pool now, but Eleanor shook her head and hugged him wordlessly.

"What were you thinking about?" Henry asked, booping Sammy on the nose and making him giggle.

"Just stuff," John replied, moving further out into the pool. It was a nice temperature today.

"Stuff, huh? Well, I hope your thoughts on 'stuff' helped you figure out 'stuff'," Henry joked.

John rolled his eyes and began swimming towards the deep end. He liked treading water in the deep end, it was peaceful there. That is, when his siblings weren't having a splash fight.

"Elias! Stop, stop, timeout!" Martha giggled, shielding her face with her hands. Elias stopped, as according to the unspoken rules, and put his arms down, but Martha grinned and yelled, "Time in!" really fast immediately after and splashed her brother right in the face, laughing.

"Wh-hey!" Elias sounded indignant, but he was still laughing, so it was kinda sending mixed signals all around. He did, however, attempt to retaliate - and miss wildly, sending the water at John instead.

John yelped and pulled his arms up and shut his eyes in what was likely to be a futile attempt to stop water from getting in his goggle-less eyes, but nothing happened.

"Woah… John, how are you doing that?" Martha sounded awed.

"What?" John opened his eyes and gasped. The water Elias had thrown at him - it was floating in midair, unmoving.

Eliza always felt sort of sluggish in the mornings. She felt even more sluggish when most of the household wasn't there. With her father gone on a business trip and her mother at a training conference for teachers, and the younger siblings of her family gone with one or the other parent, the only people in the house were her, Angelica, and Peggy, meaning it felt very empty.

The sky outside was foggy, which Eliza thought was a good representation of her mindstate at the moment, but didn't dwell on the weather because she was rather hungry.

Eliza poured herself a bowl of Frosted Flakes and filled said bowl with milk. Not exactly the most nutritious breakfast, but most healthy foods required more work, which Eliza just wasn't feeling up to this morning. She sat in the empty dining room and reflected on the day before. What had been that weird explosion?

Eliza's phone buzzed, and she reached out to pick it up. It was a message from Angelica, just some Harry Potter meme she'd found, but it was funny.

Eliza giggled, and the sky outside seemed to lighten. How odd. Eliza looked out the window, perplexed by the sky's sudden change, but shrugged it off and continued eating.

When Eliza finished, she rinsed her bowl and put it in the sink, before grabbing her phone off the table. She had a message from Alexander! It was a link to something - probably a news article, or something he'd found that he thought was particularly interesting, but that wasn't the point. Eliza opened it.

It was, as she suspected, a news article. This one was about the current president - sorry, cheeto in chief - going to Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria. And it was infuriating.

While Eliza becoming incensed over something like this wasn't unusual, the sudden thunderclap behind her was startling. She turned around, and the previously slightly foggy morning was currently being wracked by a vicious thunderstorm.

Startled and slightly worried now, since Alexander had bad memories associated with storms in general and hurricanes in particular (probably why he sent her the irritating article in the first place), Eliza stopped thinking about her anger at the orange and set her phone down.

And the storm immediately died down to a mere drizzle.

"What the…" Eliza stood by the window. "Am I doing something to the weather?" She asked herself, perplexed by the recent fluctuations in precipitation.

She thought about it, and then decided that if it were something she was doing, she must be able to do it on purpose as well, correct? So she willed for a clear and sunny sky.

And the sun streamed through the window.

"Shadow!" came a yell from above the masked vigilante. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

"Not a one, Sharpshot," Shadow replied to his partner without looking. "Whatever it is, there seems to be an army of girls with blonde hair and the employees of the museum seem to be under some kind of trance."

"That's odd," Sharpshot reflected. "All those blond girls look the exact same." What on earth was going on? First the odd weather this morning, and now this?

"We better get down there, don't you think?" Shadow glanced at Sharpshot and then jumped off the low wall where he'd been sitting to fight the army of identical blondes.

"Hey, stop starting without me!" Sharpshot yelled and raced after him, almost wishing there were no criminals to go after so she could punch Shadow in the face instead.

Shadow grabbed the nearest one of the eerily identical girls and attempted to kick her in the chest. Well, he did kick her in the chest, but then she seemed to burst like a balloon, dropping the portrait she'd tried to remove into Shadow's hands. "What the…" he muttered, looking at the painting like it was the most alien thing he'd ever seen.

Sharpshot gaped at the altercation. How did a person pop like that? It made no sense. What made even less sense was the voice that rang out over the scene - "Oh, brother dear! Someone is attacking my duplicates! Would you be a dear and send in some backup for me?"

After that ominous call, the museum staff all began walking towards the crime-fighting duo, and Sharpshot finally noticed they all had a glazed over look in their eyes.

"Shadow, look out!" Sharpshot yelled to her friend, "Whoever's behind this has the staff under some sort of trance!" And for her trouble, the nearest ten duplicates, as the voice had called them, all set down whatever they were carrying and turned towards her. Brilliant.

The blonde clones rushed to attack Sharpshot, but because Sharpshot was Sharpshot, the first four were dead before they reached her. A heroine named Sharpshot who can shoot really well? Who woulda thunk it.

The other six, however, could be problematic. While Sharpshot was no slouch at hand to hand combat, she wasn't quite good enough to go up against six people at once - or at least, not six real people, because the first two burst within seconds of reaching her.

Sharpshot ducked a sloppy punch from one of them before kneeing her/it in the chest, which made it burst. It reminded Sharpshot of bubblegum, the kind she chewed when her family went on vacation. The other three went down easy as well, with only a punch and two kicks.

Shadow, on the other hand, wasn't doing so well. He'd been beset by the brainwashed employees, and, terrified to fight back against innocents, was being soundly beaten by them. As soon as Sharpshot realized this, she knew she had to grab her partner and retreat - something they hadn't had to do in years.

She had to throw one of the staff off of him, and she hoped he was alright, but she had to get Shadow and get out of here. Grabbing him by the waist, she darted off like a shot. By the time the assailants knew what was happening, she was halfway down the street. It was a short street, but still.

Sharpshot ducked under the porch of an unoccupied house and set down her partner. "Damn it, Aaron!" she dropped using their vigilante aliases, "I get it, I really do, but we haven't had to retreat since we were in middle school!"

"Sorry, Angelica," Aaron sighed. "I just didn't know what to do, they were just civilians!" He pulled off his mask and sighed again.

"I know, I know, you don't have to say it," Angelica took off her own mask, just a simple one that might remind a superhero fan of Green Lantern, or a Disney fan of The Incredibles. She sat back on her heels and reflected on what had happened.

"I just don't understand how they were doing it," Aaron voiced Angelica's thoughts. "Whatever they were doing. It seemed impossible, didn't it?"

"Like they were super villains, like we pretended when we were little," Angelica nodded, "And we were the superheroes of our dreams instead of being simply vigilantes."

"What are we going to do, Angelica?" Aaron looked up at his friend, looking utterly lost. "We don't know how to handle something like this, we can't handle this, we -"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Angelica cut in. "Don't talk like that, Aaron! We'll figure it out, ya damned pessimist! If they really were super villains, well, for starters we'll have to train more and train harder, but also maybe there are also superheroes out there now!"

"Maybe…" Aaron trailed off. He took a deep breath and the two of them sat in silence for a few minutes before he spoke again, "We should go home. I mean, if we can't help, then there's no use sitting around in our costumes, is there?"

Angelica sighed and shook her head, and the two of them put their masks back on and just stood there a minute in the shameful silence before Angelica broke it. "See you, Shadow," she gave him a half-hearted grin and then the two of them headed off in separate directions, both seeming to fade away.

Alexander, Eliza, John, and Maria had gotten together at John's house again. They'd all had interesting mornings, to say the least, and story swapping took a while. Maria said she liked John's the best, John replied that he thought she was bitter because she'd sat her own house aflame. Maria shot back that the issue wasn't the house, it was that she hadn't figured out how to out her own flame out until the firemen were nearly to her room, and they were already suspicious enough that she had appeared fairly unharmed.

Eliza kept trying to create rainbows outside for John's younger siblings. It was mostly working, but Eliza kept overdoing it on the rain part, so the rainbows lasted for maybe seconds.

Alexander was watching the news. Because of course he was. He was still Alexander, after all, he just had telekinesis now. While the others weren't paying attention, whatever was on the news must have been interesting, because he suddenly piped up, "We should become superheroes."

"What?" all three of them turned towards their boyfriend in complete and utter shock.

Alexander shrugged. "Well, judging by what happened yesterday and what is happening today, I'd say that that implosion gave us superpowers. And if the news is any indication, it also gave powers to the King twins, who are not exactly using them morally."

"The King twins are super villains now?" Maria blinked. "This sounds like the set-up for a bad movie, Alexander. And besides, don't we have Shadow and Sharpshot to do this city's share of vigilante justice?"

"Yeah, about that… they just got beat up by Jake's mind-controlled museum staff," Alexander began his sentence slow and then finished it with a blunt, heavy tone.

"Okay, but consider this, Alexander," Eliza spoke up. "Vigilante justice, superpowers or no, is technically illegal. That's why Shadow and Sharpshot wear masks - as long as the police don't technically know their identity, they can get away with not arresting the darling duo."

"Darling duo? Have you been reading suspect sources of information on the internet again, Eliza? I've told you so many times, there is no way Shadow and Sharpshot are dating, they have no romantic chemistry at all!" Maria rolled her eyes at Eliza.

"No, I just wanted to use a word that started with 'd' to describe them and that was the first one that came to mind," Eliza explained, which made Alexander, John, and Maria begin laughing. "Shut up, it's not that funny!"

"Right, sorry, what were you saying, Eliza?" John stifled his laughter down to the merest hint of a giggle.

"I was saying we don't have any sort of superheroing costumes. We can't exactly go fight crime wearing jeans and a t-shirt," Eliza made her point with an air similar to the person who points out the obvious solution to a group creating increasingly elaborate schemes.

"Actually, you have a point, 'Liz," John looked thoughtful. "How quickly do you think Hercules could make something for us?"

"Are we really going to do this?" Maria grinned. "We'll need aliases. I'll be Pyromania, since I have fiery powers."

"Infinity," Alexander smirked. "It sounds scary and I can't come up with something more related to telekinesis."

"Coriolis," Eliza decided. "Like the Coriolis Effect. That might be more climate than weather, but honestly who cares? It sounds nice, don't you think?"

"That does sound good," John nodded to Eliza, "But I can't come up with anything to call myself. What do you think?"

"You could be Pelagic," Alexander replied. "It's relevant and it sounds very intelligent."

"I like it!" Eliza chirped and clapped her hands with glee. "I'm terrified but thrilled all at once! Oh, this is so exciting!"

"Weren't you the one with reservations not five minutes ago, Liz?" Maria laughed at the gossamer girlfriend. "You were warning us about the cops and whatnot."

"Just because I recognize the dangers associated with becoming heroes does not mean I don't want to do it!" Eliza huffed. "Honestly, who would pass up the chance to become the world's first superheroes?" She got this maniac starry-eyed look on her face, but none of her lovers could honestly blame her, considering they were all fairly close to making the same face.

"You know, I can help the four of you," a voice came from the doorway and the four teenagers whipped around to face the source.

"Dad!" John yelped. "How long have you been standing there?" John looked more upset with himself for not noticing than his father for eavesdropping, thinking, what kind of superhero can't ever notice an eavesdropper?

"Long enough. John, do you know what I do for work?" Henry Sr. asked his son and ignored the sputtering from the other three, which made Alexander and Maria more angry, which made Eliza irritated. Generally, they were upset.

"You're a lawyer, You have a super big client that pays you a lot, but you won't even tell Mom who they are. You also have lots of other clients, half of which you invite over all the time because you get attached to them and want updates on their happily-ever-afters. Why?" John blinked at his father.

"John, I think it's time I introduced you to my biggest client. Your lovers too," Henry Sr. turned around and beckoned them to follow. The room was empty twenty seconds later.

Angelica sat on her bed, attempting to read a book but honestly only cursing herself out in her head. She was supposed to be better than this! She wasn't supposed to have to retreat anymore! Not even her favorite book, My Most Excellent Year, could cheer her up, and that was just plain sad.

And then her phone rang. She grabbed it off the shelve, fully expecting it to be Eliza being a worrywort or Aaron trying to apologize again, but what she got was much worse.

"Boss?" Angelica answered the phone. "I can explain, I swear!" She know she sounded desperate. She didn't care. Even though she couldn't actually explain, she had to do everything in her power to remain in her boss's good graces. He wasn't likely to take away her funding, but if he did - well, a vigilante known for her good aim without bullets in her signature gun? Absolutely not.

"Actually, Angelica, I need to explain," her boss's came back almost sad-sounding over the phone. "Remember how we were attempting to further Project:Hero by creating some sort of concoction that would actually give you and Aaron powers?"

"Yes," Angelica breathed. As if she could forget. She and Aaron were the pride of Project:Hero - a secret governmental project dedicated to both reducing crime and inspiring the populace by being visible and recognizable while saving the day. Project:Hero had been founded by FDR back during the Great Depression, but after his administration the existence of Project:Hero became a secret from everyone but those involved due to some of the more… unorthodox methods they'd had to employ in order to get heroes on the streets long enough for anyone to notice. Not even the President was alerted to its existence.

"Arnold betrayed us," her boss continued. "He stole the prototype concoction and attempted to go public about our organization with it as evidence. We managed to catch him, but he had hidden the serum away. It overheated and caused an… incident… we're lucky that only six people were in the park."

"What are you saying, Boss? Are you telling me that not only are the crooks from the museum superpowered, there are four more supercrooks out there?" Angelica lept up from her bed in alarm.

"Not at all, darling Sharpshot," she could hear her boss grinning over the phone, as odd as that sounded, "We have four new heroes. Four new darlings I'm sure you'll be thrilled to… meet. I want you to come over to Base Base L, if you could please."

Angelica was stunned by what her boss was saying. "Wait, what? New heroes? How old are they?"

"Not optimal age, sadly, but still viable. They're all varying lengths of time into their fifteenth year," he replied, almost chuckling. "Now, hurry on over here, would you, Sharpshot?"

Angelica sighed. She wasn't going to get anything else out of him until she was in the Base, and she knew it. "Of course, Mr. Franklin."

John was baffled, to say the least. His father was part of a secret project to create superheroes? It was utterly surreal! If the others hadn't been there, he would have thought it some sort of unfunny houx.

Benjamin Franklin, the short, squat little man with a pudgy face who apparently ran the place, told the four of them that this was Base Base L, named so because main entrance to the Base was in the Laurens basement. John vaguely pondered how he had missed it before.

Franklin gave them a brief overview and history of the project, and explained what had happened that led to them gaining superpowers. He mentioned he wished that either they had been trained as heroes earlier, or that they hadn't been there but one of their trained heros had.

"Wait!" Eliza burst suddenly, cutting off Franklin, who at this point was repeating himself anyway, "Does that mean that Sharpshot and Shadow work for you?"

"Indeed it does," Franklin smiled at Eliza. "In fact, they are the best heroes Project:Hero has trained in the past decade."

"Are you bragging about me again, Boss?" Came a voice, very familiar, both as belonging to Sharpshot but for another reason as well, from behind Franklin. "So, who are these new herooooh my GOD!"

John leaned around Franklin and looked at Sharpshot up close and in person for the first time… maybe? The way she was staring at them, like this was the last place she expected to see them, (although she wasn't alone on that point) made him feel like perhaps he knew her.

And then Eliza gasped next to him, and clapped her hands to her mouth. "Angelica?" It came out as barely more than a whisper, but the room had grown so quiet it carried across the place.

Sharpshot - no, it was Angelica - took off her mask and rushed Eliza, wrapping her in a tight hug. John swore he heard her crying, and when she pulled back, there were tears running down her face, but she was beaming with pride.

"My baby sister is going to be a hero!" she laughed. "I'm so proud of you1" Angelica lifted her arm up and wiped the tears off her face.

"Angelica!" Eliza looked a bit like she was trying to achieve flight with all her bouncing, "This is where you go when we can't find you? This is amazing!" And then Eliza was lifted up off the ground by a an odd updraft and for a moment, she was floating. Then the updraft dispelled and Eliza fell back to the floor.

"Betsy!" Alexander gasped. "How did you do that?" He looked her up and down, almost like he was looking for something but didn't know what.

"I have no idea," Eliza said in a sort of monotone as she stood up, then burst into a fit of giggles. "I have to figure it out, though, because that was great!"

"Hm, yes," Franklin butted into the exchange. "That's why I called Sharpshot here. You will need training before you can go up against anyone, even normal villains. While how you train your powers will be a learning curve, having a more experienced hero can only help. So let's get started, shall we?"

A week passed quickly. It had been a completely crazy week, with all manner of incidents. They'd found out that Hercules was also a part of Project:Hero, but had found out his skills didn't lie in stopping crime a long time ago. Instead, he made costumes for the other heroes.

He did make them excellent costumes. John's was blue and looked like someone had taken a scuba suit and a business suit and fused them. Maria's was a red tight body suit with a skirt and looked brilliant. Alexander's was an emerald green suit that was an odd but attractive combination of modern and 1700s style. Eliza's was a pair of blue shorts with a matching skin-tight crop top and pair of knee-high high-heeled boots, with a beautiful flowing gossamer fabric flowing off it in an utterly beautiful manner. And of course, they all had masks.

"We should practice on a normal crime before you try to take on the twins," Angelica said, watching the four admire each-other's outfits. With her words, they all whirled to face her.

"That does sound like a good idea," Eliza smiled. "That way we aren't going in completely blind with the twins."

"Exactly," Angelica smirked. "And as luck would have it, the police scanner says there's a bank robbery happening this very minute. So what do you say? Want to go stop a criminal?"

James Reynolds was not a good person, by any stretch of the word. Even you pulled the word to it's very loosest meaning, he was not a good person at all. While his parents were completely oblivious to that fact, as they doted on both their children, his sister Maria was not so easily persuaded.

Maria clearly thought her brother was creepy, and there were more than just a couple of incidents where he scared her. After all, there was a reason she stayed out of the house as much as she could - well, while they had a house.

James wasn't too worried about the freak house fire, or the hotel, but he had always wanted to rob a bank. His reasoning, while twofold, was so shallow that Paulina Sanchez was deeper in character. Firstly, it just sounded like fun. Secondly, he would have money his parents didn't know about! And now that Sharpshot and Shadow had been forced to retreat, this sounded like the perfect time!

So who would come crash his party but the bullseye buster herself - Sharpshot. But… she was alone.

James laughed. "Ha! You're all alone, Sharpshot. You can't defeat me without Shadow here, girlie!" He taunted her.

To his surprise, Sharpshot laughed. "Actually, I was going to let my little sister and her lovers take a crack at you," she smirked -

And suddenly James found himself suspended in the air in a terrifying tornado of flame at the bottom and boiling hot water at the top. The money he had taken was carefully removed by some invisible force through the upper portion of the tornado, leaving James desperately trying not to burn himself, as the tornado seemed to be getting smaller - but the fire and water were staying in the same place. He was suddenly hit by the realization that if he stayed were he was, he was going to fall right into the fire when the mini-tornado actually dissipated.

Panicking, James threw himself through the wall of boiling water and then collapsed to the ground, nursing pretty bad burns all over, but mostly on his bare arms, which he had lifted up to shield his face.

"Well, I see we still have a few kinks to work out," Sharpshot remarked, but to James it felt worlds away. It didn't matter. She wasn't talking to him anyway. "You did great with the opening, and you four make an excellent team, but you overestimate your powers and each-other's powers. Coriolis, you didn't have the power to continue to hold up that tornado, which would have been fine if Pelagic and Pyromania had noticed and adjusted accordingly. Infinity, you had a more minor role in this encounter, but you executed it perfectly. I only wish you'd tried to find another thing to do. Now, let's go before the police arrive. I suspect we have about… thirty seconds."

What James heard next, or at least what he thought he heard next, made him almost believe this was all a dream. If it wasn't for the searing pain from his burns, he wouldn't have believed it to be real. After all, how would these new heroes know his name? And yet, he could have sworn he heard the red one - Pyromania, he believed Sharpshot had called her - say, "Yeah, and besides, James will be just fine," as the group was leaving.

But that was impossible, wasn't it?

"They have been introduced, there's a story on the news about them."

"Good! This whole endeavor would be pointless without them, wouldn't it be?"

"Indeed. I'm actually quite excited for the show."

"Good. I can not wait to show those heroes what they're really in for."

Another week passed, full of training and teambuilding and learning a whole new set of non-verbal cues and still not meeting Shadow, no matter how much they asked. Oh, and schoolwork, but that was obvious. Overall, it was a pretty good week. Even for Maria, who had to spend a large amount of time pretending to be shocked that her brother robbed a bank.

And then Saturday rolled around, sunny and bright without Eliza's interference. And, at ten in the morning, there was an announcement that the mysterious blond twins who had defeated the Darling Duo two weeks past were attempting to rob the bank that James had tried to rob one week past.

The polysquad, although slightly miffed at having to leave in the middle of playing Clue: Master Detective with John's family, dutifully went to confront the evil twins. Within minutes, they were facing off, the bank floor between them.

And with a laugh from the female twin, who Maria was certain was Georgette King, the twins charged. Georgette multiplied into many, many little copies of herself, and Jake seemed to cause all the employees to attack.

Alexander ripped up the bank counters and moved them to blockade the employees away from them - because when you have telekinesis, things like weight weren't at all an issue! Mass, on the other hand, now that could be problematic, but he still managed (barely) to trap the employees.

"Duck!" Maria yelled immediately after, and threw out an arc of fire that incinerated the copies of Georgette with ease. Or at least, most of them.

A few copies slipped away and managed to open a narrow hole in Alexander's barricade, allowing a couple of employees through. Although only two were slim enough to make it through the hole before John encased the duplicates' heads with water and increased the pressure until they popped, there were still two mind-controlled innocents attempting to attack them - and Alexander had used all his power to create that barricade in the first place, so he couldn't put them back.

Eliza adapted quickly, creating a strong updraft that hurled one poor woman back into the pen. However, she let out a noise of pain upon landing, which made Eliza wince.

The other employee, on the other hand, was not so lucky. He was paired against Maria, who was attempting to use her fire to herd him back, but he got close enough to burn before he would retreat even a few steps, and Maria feared what his reaction would be when he recovered from the influence of Jake.

Because he would get so close before backing away, Maria herself was having to back up. She did not want to try to explain to her parents if she came home bruised. The result was a very odd looking dance, almost.

"John!" Alexander, sitting on the floor, exhausted, called. "John, look! What are they doing?" Alexander pointed to where the twins themselves were darting around the building, doing something in a hurry.

"They're smashing the cameras!" John yelped as he realised what he was seeing. "Stop!" he cried out, reflexively darting towards them before remembering that he had super powers now, and condensing the water vapor inside the bank - not that there was much, but there was enough for him to do something - and slamming it into Jake's back, pushing him to the floor.

Unfortunately, John and Alexander's realization of what was happening was too late to prevent Georgette from smashing the last camera, which triggered from her a bout of evil-sounding laughter.

Fortunately, Maria had finally gotten the last teller under control by putting her in the center of a fiery cone. The teller could not approach her or go around, but it was wide enough that he shouldn't ever have to touch the sides.

Eliza looked about, noticed the destroyed cameras, and asked the question on all four heroes' minds: "What does that accomplish?"

"Well, we couldn't deliver our message to you if we were being filmed, could we?" Jake asked as he got up and walked over to his sister, wincing slightly in pain.

"Message?" Alexander echoed, tilting his head to give them a confused look.

"We know all about Project:Hero," Georgette began, "but it accomplishes nothing as it is. Boost public morale? Ha! You are simply more identifiable and superpowered police in the state you are now. So my brother and I have decided to help you. We are the beginning of Project:Villain, and we are going to be your public adversaries. Don't worry, we'll put all the stolen goods back where we found them - at some point."

"See you at school tomorrow!" Jake waved, and then the siblings dashed out the front door, laughing.

The room was silent for a minute. And then another minute. And this time, it was Maria who broke the silence by saying what they were all thinking.

"What the hell?"


End file.
